Published 12:00 am, Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The governor-elect met privately Tuesday with his fellow Democrat, Gov. David Paterson, in New York City before the two appeared for a joint news conference. The pair met briefly Monday in Puerto Rico to discuss a coming budget deficit estimated around $9 billion and the question of which government staffers will stay or go.

"One of the main issues on the transition is personnel: The governor and I are going to be discussing existing personnel, and he's going to be giving me recommendations," Cuomo said at the news conference.

A transition committee will be dedicated to recruiting, he said. "Any organization is only as good as its talent," Cuomo said.

The exact composition of the committee has not been determined, but people familiar with Cuomo's transition said it is likely to include Michael Del Guidice, a former chief of staff to Gov. Mario Cuomo.

It's not expected Paterson will play a prominent role in the process, but aides to both men say he and Cuomo are working amicably together, and they have enjoyed witty banter in public: At Tuesday's event, both alluded to a squirt gun fight they had earlier in the decade ("It's a long story; we'll share it some other time," Cuomo said).

Cuomo repeated his pledge for "no new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes" and said his first budget will "reinvent" state government as it reduces spending.

"Let's call it program redesign," Cuomo said. "There's an assumption that the state government is a model of total efficiency and effectiveness, and any cuts to that -- you know, it's like you're tampering with a finely tuned Swiss watch. There's no waste, there's no fraud, and the thing's just running perfectly. I spent four years as attorney general: There's plenty of waste and there's plenty of fraud and there's plenty of abuse."

"Maybe we use this point in time to do a lot of hard analysis that the system needed, and that's going to be part of it," he said.

It's unclear when the transition panel will be fully constituted. Cuomo said he embark on a "tour" of state-run facilities, beginning Wednesday with Sing Sing prison and the Manhattan Psychiatric Center on Ward's Island.

Cuomo also reiterated Paterson's call for legislators to reconvene and deal with a $315 million budget imbalance this calendar year.